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Social Tools Don't Make You A Social Business
We use Twitter, we're a social business, is like "I have an MBA, I'm ready to be CEO."
August 6, 2013
10 IT Leaders To Follow On Twitter
10 IT Leaders To Follow On Twitter(click image for larger view and for slideshow)
Nilofer Merchant (@nilofer) shared a valuable perspective on the word social as it pertains to business in her Harvard Business Review article. Merchant described the evolution of the terms social media, Enterprise 2.0, social business, social innovation, and social era, providing a contextual understanding of each term.
The term social business was created to describe how companies can generate greater value for their ecosystem by adding a social overlay. The first-generation social business was defined by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus (@Yunus_Centre) as a company dedicated to solving human problems. The term evolved to a second generation by the Dachis Group (@dachisgroup) to incorporate a social element interconnecting the various business constituents including marketing, R&D, customer support and suppliers. This second-generation meaning of social business is often tied to shared value and can encompass the use of social media tools.
In our book, The Pursuit of Social Business Excellence, Brad Martin and I describe the social business as an environment that feels like a small town; people know your name, doors are left open, and the lights are on. For us, social business transformation was less about the use of technology to improve connectedness, and more about a mindset of collaboration and co-creation of value. Our ability to grow our business and delight customers was a function of culture, people, process and, last, technology.
[ Why go social? Read Social Collaboration's Big Payoff: Increased Sales. ]
We found there are a number of specific markers that accompany and validate the social transformation progress. Business leaders should keep in mind that the purpose of collaboration is to improve execution velocity and delight customers. It is important to demonstrate to all constituents the ability to drive sustainable growth and bolster customer loyalty and commitment, as a result of collaboration.
-- Pragmatic optimism: A social business defaults to "yes" and then rationalizes to the desired disposition. A bias for action with a positive mindset leads to an agile and change-embracing culture. There is no safety in the status quo. Optimism is often fueled by teamwork and collaboration.
-- Minimal layers: A social business is flat, versus the traditional hierarchical business structure. The distance between an individual contributor and the CEO is but a few layers. In a social business, there is a direct line of communication between entry-level employees and senior management.
-- Leadership by example: In a social business, all leaders and executives are socially engaged. If your CXOs are not social, your business is not social. Ask a social business executive, "Who is the smartest person in the room?" and she will answer: the room. Social executives are accessible, active listeners and connectors of the business, always seeking the best and fastest path toward progress and growth.
-- The best ideas win, independent of titles: In a social business, ideas and information flow horizontally, vertically, from the bottom and from the top; throughout the business. Ideas are like sounds, and they should be heard through the seams of the social fabric. In the absence of sound, ideas die. The most damaging syndrome is the HIPPO (highest paid person's opinion) syndrome, whereby all the decisions are ultimately dictated by the biggest title. The best ideas must win. That's the biggest benefit of being social.
-- Social and business process integration: Social businesses have integrated social channels into their business processes and workflows. This means integrating social media networks into CRM solutions. Social CRM is often the first sign of social business adoption, aimed at increased visibility and execution velocity. Adoption of social media is a great first step but a truly social business is one that integrates social networks and all of its contact channels into a single relationship management framework.
-- Adoption of gaming techniques: In a social business, internal competition is welcomed. This means social businesses embrace gamification to drive employee, customer and business partner engagements. Gaming concepts, packaged into an overall CRM strategy, can unlock the full potential of the organization.
-- Safe environment: In a social business, an idea or red flag from anyone can reach the CEO directly, without a middle man and without repercussion. The environment is safe and collaborative, where failures are viewed as part of the learning experience. That said, the agile business adopts a "try it, fix it, try it again" iterative improvement philosophy.
-- Shared accountability: Social businesses share complete interdepartmental performance metrics as a means to foster collaboration. Social businesses extend performance metrics to customers and partners with connection to both people and products.
-- Reflective and iterative: A social business continually challenges existing assumptions and communicates a desire for mid-course corrections or pivots in advance of execution. In a highly collaborative business, experiments are welcomed; innovation is not about better sameness.
-- Social people and social products: Every information source in the ecosystem should be used to help employees make better, more-informed decisions. Information sources include people and products/machines. The network social graph of an advanced social business includes both people and products. In the near future, wearable products, sensor technology and machine-to-machine (M2M) communication will include social channels.
In summary, a social business is much more than a business that uses social media. Social collaboration success is more a cultural and philosophical achievement than technology adoption. Collaboration is hard work but it doesn't have to be complex work. In fact, collaboration can simply start with four words: What do you think?
About the Author(s)
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Car Crime
Like many other cities in California, the City of Concord has experienced a dramatic increase in car crime. Just in the year 2004, there were over 1,000 cars stolen and over 2,000 cars broken into. The residents of Concord can help prevent these crimes and reduce the numbers of cars stolen and broken into each day.
Tips for Prevention
- Do not leave valuables in your car
- Always lock your car and park in well lighted areas
- Use anti-theft devices that immobilize the steering wheel or ignition
- Never leave your car unattended while its running
- If your stereo has a detachable faceplate, remove it when you park your car
Take Control & Protect Your Vehicle with Lojack
The patented LoJack System includes a small radio frequency transceiver hidden on your vehicle. Each LoJack System has a unique code that is tied into the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN). When a theft is reported to the police, a routine entry into the state police crime computer results in a match of the LoJack System's unique code against the state VIN database. This automatically activates the LoJack System in your car, which emits an inaudible signal. Law enforcement authorities who are equipped with LoJack vehicle tracking units - in their police cruisers and aviation units - are always listening for a LoJack signal. Police use the LoJack vehicle tracking units in their patrol vehicles to track and recover your LoJack equipped vehicle.
This system is currently in place in most police agencies in Northern and Southern California, including Contra Costa County. Several vehicles have been recovered by the Concord Police Department as a result of this Lojack system. For more information on this product, please visit the LoJack website or contact the Concord Police Department Auto Theft Unit at 925-671-3030.

subset: commoncrawl


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I've been writing these tutorials on making an object in popular 3D modeling programs for a while now, and each week I've put out a call for what software I should do next. There is one constant in all those comment threads: FreeCAD. I don't know if these suggestions reflect the popularity or difficulty of FreeCAD nevermind, it's totally the difficulty.
FreeCAD is an amazing tool that, if used correctly, can be used to make just about any part, and do it in a manufacturing context. If you need a bauble that's three times the size of the original, FreeCAD's parametric modeling makes it easy to scale it up. If you're designing a thumbscrew and want the head larger while keeping the threads the same, FreeCAD is for you. Basically, you can think of this as a graphical extension of the Thingiverse Customizer. Very powerful, very cool, and unlike a lot of CAD packages out there, free.
Our in-house, overpaid SEO expert (he's really just a monkey someone trained to use a bullwhip) demands I link to the previous 'Making a Thing' tutorials:
The tutorial for FreeCAD continues below.
Our Thing
As with all tutorials, we'll be copying this "thing", taken from an 80-year-old textbook on drafting.
We won't be copying this thing exactly – there's a small taper on the tab with the counterbored hole – but we'll get close enough so our finished model should be functionally equivalent.
Starting Up, And An Overview
To use FreeCAD, you might want to download FreeCAD. It's available for Windows, Linux, and OS X in 32 or 64-bit varieties. Pick your poison. After downloading and installing, you'll end up with a "start center" that looks something like this:
FreeCAD is unique among 3D design programs in that it has many different workbenches, or modes, to draw and model in. For most of our thing we'll be using the Part Design workbench. Under the Start A New Project tab in the start page, click on the Part Design button. Hit Create Sketch, Choose the XY-Plane, and marvel at your drawing grid.
Before you begin, you might as well change the grid size to 1mm and turn on grid snap.
A word of note: While the grid size says millimeters, FreeCAD doesn't really have units. Well, it has units, where one FreeCAD unit is equal to one FreeCAD unit. This is fine, because now we can design our part in eighths of an inch, where one eighth of an inch is one unit. It's simpler, and to print out a correctly sized part we'll need to multiply anyway…
If you read nothing else, read these two paragraphs
FreeCAD is a parametric modeler. This means all lines, figures, and subassemblies are defined by parameters and constraints. parameters are pieces of information that define a property of a part – a 10cm cube would have a parameter for the X, Y, and Z axes equal to 10cm. Constraints define the relationship between parts of an object. Two lines can be constrained to being parallel; move one vertex of a line, and a vertex of the constrained line will move as well.
Modeling an object parametrically is how companies can design many similar, but differently sized objects. A company that makes shoes may have only one model for every size of shoe. With parametric models, fabricating the parts for a run of size 6 and size 10 shoes may be as simple as changing a single number – the length from toe to heel.
Finally, Building
For most of our modeling, we'll be working with two toolbars. They are the geometries and constraints toolbars:
The Geometries toolbar is what you would find in just about any CAD or drawing package. You have buttons for creating a point, an arc, a circle, lines and polylines, and even fillet and trim buttons.
The Constraints toolbar has buttons for locking an object (a line, circle, polyline, or what have you) onto the vertical axis and horizontal axis. In addition, lines can be made parallel, perpendicular, on a tangent to an arc, and the vertical, horizontal distances of a line, as well as the total length of a line or the radius of a circle may be constrained as well.
The first part of our 'thing' we'll draw is the largest circle. Using the grid snap (or by pressing CTRL while moving the cursor around), draw a circle at 0,0 on the grid. This circle will have a radius of 9.5. We're doing our units in eighths of an inch, and since the largest circle has a diameter of 2 3/8″, or 19/8″, the radius will be 9.5 units. Also add another circle with a radius of 4.
You can use the Geometries button to make these circles roughly to size, then use the radius constraint to make the circles the required sizes.
After you've drawn and constrained these circles, you should have something that looks like this:
Now for some detailing
There's still a lot to add to our 'thing'. Let's start with the 3/8″ wide slot. Start by drawing two lines roughly going from the center of the circles through the larger circle. Constrain them to be parallel, and the angle of one (the far right button on the Constrain toolbar) to be 45 degrees.
Using the Trim tool on the geometry toolbar, trim off all the excess – the ends of both lines, and the cutout on both of the circles. Now you should have something that looks like the letter C.
With the "Fix a length" constraint tool, make the distance between both of the 45 degree lines to be 3. Finally, lock the upper, outer vertex of the slot with the 'Lock' constraint. You should have something that looks like the pic to the right. You'll also notice on the left-hand toolbar of FreeCAD the "Solver messages" says it's a fully constrained sketch.
This means we've done this properly. Well, in this case that's a bit of a lie (we haven't guaranteed the slot is lined up with the center of the circles), but it's close enough. In FreeCAD, the object is to have a fully constrained object. That's what we've done here.
Since I like to keep these tutorials down to about 1000 words, I'm going to end this here. In the next installment of this tutorial, we're going to add the flanges on this washer-type part, extrude it into the third dimension, and add the bit with the countersunk hole.
To be continued, and I'll probably put a link to Part II right here.


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By Geetesh Bajaj
SmartArt is a new component within PowerPoint 2007 and 2010 for Windows that replaces the diagram options in previous versions of PowerPoint. SmartArt also allows you to replace bullet points with info-graphic content using text-within-shapes that's more logical to view and present.
In this tutorial you'll learn how to insert a SmartArt graphics within PowerPoint 2010. If you are new to this, do also take a look at the What is SmartArt? and SmartArt Samples pages.
Follow these steps to insert a new SmartArt graphic in PowerPoint 2010:
1. Create a new presentation, or open an existing presentation in PowerPoint.
2. When you insert a new slide in PowerPoint, it uses the default Title and Content Slide layout. But if you open a new presentation, it opens a new slide with the default Title Slide layout which you have to change to Title and Content.
3. Click the Layout button/option in the Home tab of the Ribbon to bring up the Layout gallery as shown in Figure 1. Select any of the layouts that include a content placeholder (the small palette like collection of multicolored buttons visible on some of the slide layouts (see Figure 1 again).
Figure 1: Choose a slide layout that includes a content placeholder
4. If your slide layout has a content placeholder, click the Insert SmartArt Graphic button among the six buttons in the content placeholder that you can see in the slide within Figure 2.
Figure 2: Content Placeholder
Alternatively, if you want to insert a SmartArt in an existing slide that has no content placeholder, just select the Insert tab of the Ribbon, and click the SmartArt button, as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3: SmartArt button under Insert tab of the Ribbon
5. Either of these options opens the Choose a SmartArt Graphic dialog box that you can see in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Choose a SmartArt Graphic dialog box
The left pane lists the types of SmartArt graphics available — the middle area displays SmartArt graphic variants within the selected type, and the area towards the right shows a preview of the selected SmartArt graphic along with a brief description.
6. Select any of the SmartArt graphic variants you want to insert, and click OK.
7. This will place the selected SmartArt graphic on the slide, as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5: Inserted SmartArt graphic
8. When the SmartArt graphic is placed on the slide, click the arrows located on the left side (highlighted in red in Figure 5 above) to open the text pane (see Figure 6).
Figure 6: SmartArt graphic text pane
9. Any text content added or edited within the text pane shows up within the SmartArt graphic as well.
10. Save your presentation.
About the Author:
Geetesh Bajaj has been designing and training with PowerPoint for 15 years and is a Microsoft PowerPoint MVP (Most Valuable Professional.) He heads Indezine (www.indezine.com) a presentation design studio and content development organization based in Hyderabad, India. The site attracts more than a million page views each month and has thousands of free PowerPoint templates and other goodies for visitors to download. He also runs another PowerPoint- related site (http://www.ppted.com) that provides designer PowerPoint templates.


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November 5, 2008 DOL Home > About DOL > History > Century of Service |
Century of Service The "Century of Service Honor Roll of American Labor Organizations" honors labor unions that have reached their 100th anniversary. This Honor Roll originated in 1992 under Secretary of Labor Lynn Martin. With Secretary Elaine L. Chaos induction in 2003 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the Laborers International Union of North America, the International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Asbestos Workers, and the National Rural Letter Carriers Association, forty-five unions are now included in the Century of Service Honor Roll. The "Century of Service" exhibit is located in the North Plaza of the U.S. Department of Labor's Frances Perkins Building, 200 Constitution Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. The exhibit is maintained by the Departmental
Librarian Jean Bowers and the Office
of the Assistant Secretary for Adminstration and Management and is open to the
public during government working hours.


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Instant Coffee — Off the Beaten Aisle
Most of us have to be suffering from a pretty mind-blowing caffeine-withdrawal migraine before we'll reach for instant coffee.
Which doesn't mean you shouldn't buy some. Because while instant coffee makes a generally lousy cup of java, it can do astounding things for your cooking.
And that is why it is such an overlooked and underappreciated ingredient.
First, an instant-coffee primer.
Coffee hounds have been tinkering with versions of instant coffee since at least the late 1700s, but it wasn't until just before World War II that it became widely available.
Those early varieties were made by spraying brewed coffee into heated towers and drying it into granules. By 1964, a freeze-drying method had been perfected, which boasted superior aroma and body.
Better, perhaps, but most of us still don't consider it good.
But that's OK. Because while instant coffee may not do wonders in your morning mug, it can effortlessly add tons of depth and flavor at the dinner table.
That's because coffee — even the instant variety — packs one of the most complex flavor profiles of any food, an amazing balance of acidity, bitterness, sweetness and earthy notes.
While tasty on their own — or with cream and sugar — those flavors can heighten the impact of other ingredients in a dish, much in the way salt does.
So what should you do with it? Start by not making a cup of coffee with it. Instead, use it as a dry ingredient.
• Add a tablespoon or two of instant coffee to your favorite chili. You will get a depth of flavor you didn't think possible.
• For the same reason, add some to a tomato- or red wine-based beef stew. Coffee plays so well with the savory meat and acidic-sweet tomatoes.
• Combine instant coffee with salt, cumin, ground black pepper and whatever else gets you going. Grind it up and use as a rub on steaks or beef roasts.
• Can you say mocha cookies? Add some instant coffee to a chocolate-chocolate chip cookie recipe. Ditto for chocolate cake.
• Make the best hot cocoa. In a saucepan, combine equal parts cocoa powder and instant coffee with milk. Bring to a gentle simmer and whisk in sugar (to taste). Or be totally decadent and use chocolate chips instead of sugar.
In a blender, combine the bourbon, brown sugar, coffee, soy sauce, garlic and ginger. Puree until smooth, then transfer to a large zip-close plastic bag.
Add the steak tips to the bag, close the bag, then turn to coat the meat with the marinade. Refrigerate at least 1 hour and up to overnight.
When ready, heat the broiler with an oven rack 6 inches from the heat.
Remove the steaks tips from the bag. Add the onions to the bag, close, then turn to coat. Transfer the onions and the marinade to a large roasting pan.
Set the onions under the broiler and cook for 3 to 4 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, set the steak tips over the onions, then return to the broiler.
Broil for 5 to 6 minutes, then turn the tips and broil for another 5 to 6 minutes. Let the meat rest for several minutes, then serve with onions spooned over them.
Nutrition information per serving (values are rounded to the nearest whole number): 730 calories; 200 calories from fat (27 percent of total calories); 22 g fat (8 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 165 mg cholesterol; 42 g carbohydrate; 50 g protein; 2 g fiber; 1,450 mg sodium.
J.M. Hirsch is the national food editor for The Associated Press. He is the author of the recent cookbook High Flavor, Low Labor: Reinventing Weeknight Cooking . He also blogs at LunchBoxBlues.com.


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13. Taking Inventory of God's Grace (Galatians 3 & 4)
In a recent message I spoke of my efforts to make a "silk purse from a sow's ear" by trying to make a Rambler station wagon into a car it was never meant to be. I now have another confession to make: immediately after that message I bought my third Pinto. A price of $100 purchased a wrecked Pinto wagon to supply parts for my other two Pintos. It was completely dismantled and is now filed away in my garage and attic. The "remains" rest peacefully in a wrecking yard. However, so little was left that it resembled the bones of a turkey picked clean and then boiled for soup. After towing it to the wrecking yard, I unbolted the hitch, jacked up the car, removed the differential and wheels, loaded them in the truck, and drove home.
That car was thoroughly dismantled. Everything attached with screws my daughter Jenny had removed with a screwdriver. To find parts for later use, I sorted them according to kind—air conditioner, engine block, cylinder head, etc. Now there are several boxes of parts, labeled according to category such as body parts, pollution equipment, fuel, ignition and exhaust systems.
Dismantling that Pinto was necessary, as was the separating and sorting of all the parts. Although stored for future use, none of them will serve any purpose until they are placed on one of the other Pintos and put in proper relationship to all of the other parts.
Thus far in our study we have treated the Book of Galatians like that Pinto. We have been dissecting the book, looking carefully at each part, thinking about its function and contribution. But, like those car parts, they are useless until they are implemented where they function as a whole. Hopefully, we likewise now have our mental attics filled with pieces of fact and principle gleaned from our study in Galatians.
In our last lesson we concluded the second of the three major sections of the Galatian epistle. It is a good time to take inventory of what we have learned, and it may also be a fitting occasion to try to categorize some of the major components, some of the major strands of theology which Paul has woven together in this great book. In addition, we must not overlook the synthetic idea, Paul's purpose in writing the book.
Let us then carefully reflect on the first four chapters of the Book of Galatians, taking stock of what we have learned, and preparing as well for what lies ahead in the final two chapters. We shall pursue our study by walking through the first four chapters a section at a time refreshing our memories on what we have previously studied. Then we will survey the various themes of these chapters, showing their development in the epistle. Finally, we will attempt to show how these themes fit together to convey the message which Paul intended his readers to grasp, and which the Holy Spirit has inspired and preserved for our instruction and edification as well.
Overview of Chapters 1-4
Chapters 1 and 2 comprise the first division of Galatians. The focus of these chapters is on the life of the Apostle Paul. The Judaizers had repudiated both the message of salvation by grace and the messenger, the Apostle Paul. The charge against Paul was that his gospel had been contrived. They claimed that he wooed the favor of the Galatians by a kind of easy-believism, which puts aside all need to live under the Old Testament Law. Paul's response was to survey his life, to show that his salvation as well as his ministry was divinely planned and executed, and that his independence from human manipulation was evident throughout his ministry. Having briefly surveyed the first two chapters, let us review them in more detail.
Verses 1-5 of chapter 1 introduce the epistle in the typical style of that day. Aside from identifying the author and the recipients of the letter, two significant statements are made. First, Paul was an apostle, not by man's appointment but by God's (1:1). Second, the goal of Christ's intervention in history was to deliver Christians from this sinful world. These statements are critical because Paul's apostleship is essential to the authority of his letter. He also clarifies at the very outset that whatever men may accuse his gospel of doing, its purpose is to deliver men from sin, not to promote or condone it.
Verses 6-9 spell out the Galatian problem which has occasioned the writing of this epistle. The Galatian churches have departed from the gospel they had recently received, and in so doing deserted God, who had saved them through Christ (1:6). While there was really no other gospel (1:7), those who preached another so-called "gospel" were worthy of the most severe pronouncement of anathema (1:8). This curse is repeated, and applies to all, even Paul himself (1:9). The message is greater than the messenger, and thus no messenger should dare to change it.
Verse 10 states the issue raised by the Judaizers about Paul's gospel. They charged that he was a man-pleaser, that his gospel had departed from God's Old Testament Law, and he thus wished to win the favor of men by offering a cheap salvation. Paul contended that his gospel was not of human origin (1:11). Verses 12-24 describe Paul's life from before his conversion to three years after it. In his former days he was a man-pleaser, climbing the ladder of success by his zealous persecution of the church of our Lord (1:12-14). God had other plans for Paul, which began before his birth, and resulted in his conversion (1:15).
Paul was not converted through the instrumentality of any of the Jewish Christian leaders from Jerusalem (apostles), neither did he quickly seek to consult with them (1:16-17). Paul made only a brief visit to Jerusalem three years after his conversion, seeing only Peter and James (1:18-19). Other than this, Paul's ministry was distant from Jerusalem, so that he was unknown to the church there, save by reputation, for which the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem rejoiced (1:20-24).
It was some fourteen years later that Paul made a second journey to Jerusalem, prompted by a divine revelation and accompanied by Barnabas and Titus (2:1-2). A private meeting with James, Peter, and John (2:2, 9) resulted in their giving Paul and his companions the right hand of fellowship, signifying that they received him as a true believer and that they also approved of his message and ministry even though it was targeted toward the Gentiles. The only stipulation made was that they continue to minister to the poor, which was the occasion for that visit (2:6-10). A contingent of legalists sought to force circumcision on Titus, but Paul refused to give in to them for the sake of the gospel, and it appears that the apostles sided with Paul in this (2:3-5).
Paul's confrontation of Peter (2:11-21) was the most dramatic instance of Paul's independence of men with regard to the gospel. Peter, sensing the pressure of the Jewish believers who had come to Antioch from James (Jerusalem), had withdrawn from eating with the Gentiles, sitting separately instead with the Jews. His example caused others, Barnabas included, to join him in this act, an act which Paul publicly challenged because it was a denial of the gospel. Both Jew and Gentile were equal in their sinfulness, as well as in their salvation.
Paul refuted the false and unfounded charges against him of being a people-pleaser in his gospel. He had proven himself independent of men's acceptance and praise and had never tried to make the gospel something easy for men to accept or to practice. While Paul was independent of those whom he would have been expected to try to please (the Jerusalem apostles), they had warmly received him, stood by him in his resistance to the Judaizers, and approved of his message and ministry by giving him the "right hand of fellowship."
The Galatians needed to learn two principle lessons from Paul's testimony as contained in chapters 1 and 2. First, they should have recognized that the charges of the Judaizers against Paul were without substance. He had ceased to be a man-pleaser at the time of his conversion. Instead of seeking the approval of others, he had often taken the difficult course of resisting their error.
Second, the Galatians were encouraged to observe and imitate Paul's exemplary ministry. The Galatians were too self-conscious of their reputation before the Judaizers, seeking to win their approval by submitting to circumcision and putting themselves under the Law. If the Galatians imitated Paul, they would make the gospel the standard for their own doctrine and practice, and they would strongly resist the Judaizers who were attempting to subvert the gospel. It was not Paul who was too sensitive to men's opinion; it was the Galatian saints.
Chapters 3 and 4 compose the second major section of the book. The focus of these chapters centers on the critical differences between Paul's gospel and that of the Judaizers. The single word "differences" aptly summarizes these two chapters, for those significant differences were overlooked by the Galatians in their folly. There were those things which were wrongly distinguished by them as well. Let us consider this section through the grid of distinctions.
In verses 1-5 of chapter 3 Paul points to the contrast between the way the Galatians attempted to live their Christian life and the way they were saved. They initially received the Spirit and experienced His power through believing faith alone, but later they foolishly set their faith aside for works.
In verses 6-14 Paul differentiates between the blessings of Abraham, which come by faith, as opposed to the cursings which result from being under the Law. Abraham was pronounced righteous on the basis of his faith, not law-works (3:6). The promises made to Abraham included the blessing of the Gentiles, who by faith are the sons of Abraham and heirs of the promise (3:7-9). In contrast, there is no promise of blessing in law-works. The Law only condemns men, since it must be kept completely and consistently. Law and faith are thus antithetical (3:10-12). The curse of the Law does not negate the promises of God to Abraham and his descendants, for that was borne by the Lord Jesus Christ (3:13-14).
In verses 15-29, Paul expounds on the distinctions of the covenant God made with Abraham and that which was made with the nation Israel through Moses. The Law of Moses which produced a curse did not set aside or modify the covenant made with Abraham which promised blessing. Three principle reasons are given for the priority of the Abrahamic Covenant and its promised blessings. First, the Abrahamic Covenant was ratified prior to the Mosaic, and thus has precedence over it (3:15, 17). Second, under the Mosaic Covenant blessing was conditional, based upon the performance of the entire nation. The Abrahamic covenant was unconditional, and blessing was to be accomplished through one person, Abraham's seed (singular), namely Jesus Christ who Himself was God (3:16). Third, the Law of Moses was intended to be provisional and preparatory while the blessings promised Abraham were to be permanent. The Law was distinct and even inferior to the promise, yet it did not compete with or contradict the promise; rather, it prepared men for Christ and even pointed to Him (3:19-25).
While the Law made many distinctions between holy and unholy, sacred and secular, Jew and Gentile, all such distinctions are to be set aside in light of the coming of Christ and the truth of the Gospel. In Christ, the old distinctions have disappeared, for in Him there is no inferiority or superiority based on external differences such as those between Jews and Gentiles, slaves or free men, males or females. These are the very distinctions pressed by the Judaizers, for it is on the basis of such differences they considered themselves spiritually superior (3:26-29). There are now to be no such distinctions, based on the distinction between life under the Mosaic Covenant and life lived in Christ with the blessings promised to Abraham and those who are his sons by faith.
In the first 11 verses of chapter 4 Paul likens the dramatic transition from law to grace to the change from the status of a child-heir to an adult-heir who finally becomes what he was destined by his father's will to be. While a child, the heir was no better than a slave. Remember that the Judaizers were teaching the superiority of Israel's "good old days" under the Law as the basis for their appeal to the Gentiles to become circumcised and place themselves under the Law. Paul's illustration indicates that superior status is given to the full son, which the Gentiles had become by faith in Christ. Even in the former condition of being under the Law, the Jew was no better than the Gentile, for both were slaves though in a different form (3:1-8). Why did the Gentiles want to turn the clock back and return to the condition of bondage under the Law when they were set free in Christ (4:9-11)?
There is a further contrast drawn. The way Paul had originally been received differed from the way the Galatians later shunned him (4:12-20). On his first visit he had received the warmest reception, even though his physical infirmity made him repulsive. Later he was shunned as though he had the plague. Only one explanation existed. Paul had not changed in his love for them—they had changed their attitude toward him. The change came in their rejection of Paul's gospel. It was Paul's gospel that once bound them together in the most intimate and fervent love. After rejecting his gospel, their intimacy was hindered. On the basis of the relationship they had once experienced, Paul appealed to them as a heartbroken mother, to return to his gospel and to him.
Verses 21-31 act as a conclusion to this section. Paul illustrates the difference between the two covenants by comparing them with the two wives of Abraham and their sons. Paul leads us to the conclusion that the fleshly sons of Abraham are not heirs of the promise, but only those who are sons by faith. In Paul's analogy, the Judaizers were justified in calling themselves "sons of Abraham," but not in thinking they were heirs of the promise. Indeed they sought to earn God's blessings by the works of the flesh, rather than by trusting in God for His righteousness provided by grace. Only those who, like Abraham, are men of faith, are true sons of Abraham and thus heirs of the blessings which were promised through Abraham's seed. The friction between the Jewish saints and the Gentile believers was really persecution, stemming from the jealousy of the Jews who resisted their (Israel's) blessings being bestowed on the Gentiles. The only solution was for the Galatian churches to cast out the Judaizers, just as Sarah insisted that Abraham cast out Hagar and her son.
In no uncertain terms, chapters 3 and 4 prove not only the superiority but the priority of grace over law. To follow the Judaizers in placing oneself under the Law was to turn from the blessings of the promise through faith to the cursing of the Law.
The Theme of Chapters 1-4
There are many themes which could be pursued by the student of Galatians 1-4. There is, however, one overriding theme which we dare not overlook, for I believe that it is the principle purpose of this epistle. These chapters focus on the grace of God as evident in the gospel. The grace of God may be seen as a fundamental principle of the Christian life and the fundamental problem so far as the Galatian churches were concerned. Let me summarize some of the ways which Paul emphasizes the grace of God in these first four chapters.
(1) Grace is the message and the means of salvation. In Galatians 1:15, Paul spoke of God calling him "through His grace." Paul realized that it was grace alone which sought and saved him. How could he, a persecutor of Christ and His church, possibly deserve salvation? The Galatians too were "called by the grace of Christ" (1:6). Salvation is a matter of pure grace, nothing more, nothing less.
(2) Grace is the means of the Christian's sanctification. The thrust of Paul's argument in the first 5 verses of chapter 3 is that the Galatian Christians have begun by faith and have turned to works. The assumption of the argument is that one is sanctified on the same basis that he is saved—by grace (cf. Col. 2:6). On the basis of this principle Peter says, "But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" (2 Pet. 3:18a). This is also why Paul says that receiving circumcision as a law-work is to have fallen from grace (Gal. 5:4). Grace is the way in which God has chosen to deal with sinful men. Sinful men cannot earn righteousness in God's sight; they can only receive His righteousness by grace, through faith in Christ. It is also in this same grace that we stand (Rom. 5:2).
(3) Grace is the motive and the means for the Christian's service. When Paul speaks of his ministry, which was approved by Peter, James, and John (Gal. 2:9), he refers to it as "the grace that had been given to me." Ministry, like salvation and sanctification, is a matter of grace. It is not a coincidence that the Greek word for spiritual gifts is a derivative of the term for grace. This is why we find statements in Scripture like these:
And since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let each exercise them accordingly … (Rom. 12:6a).
But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift (Eph. 4:7).
As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God (1 Pet. 4:10).
(4) The grace of God in the gospel is the standard for all teaching and conduct. The gospel which Paul first preached was the gospel of God's grace in Christ. The "different gospel" taught by the Judaizers was a departure from God's grace to works. Submission to circumcision as a law-work was to fall from grace (Gal. 5:4). Paul strongly reacted to such a departure, saying that no matter who it might be, including himself, the one who teaches salvation through any means other than grace is accursed (Gal. 1:6-9).
While Peter's teaching was orthodox, his practice departed from the grace of God in the gospel when he removed himself from the table of Gentile believers. Paul's strong reaction and rebuke was due to the fact that this behavior was inconsistent with the gospel. The grace of God in the gospel was the standard by which Paul measured Peter's actions.
(5) Grace obliterates distinctions of superiority. The gospel removes distinctions, such as those between Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free, male and female (Gal. 3:28). Although not clearly stated, it is implied that grace removes these distinctions. Let me explain.
If men are lost apart from God's grace, they are equally lost. It doesn't matter whether one is an unbelieving Jew or an unbelieving Gentile, they are equally lost in that both will spend eternity apart from Christ. Both the Christian Jew and the Christian Gentile have an equal standing before God, righteous in His sight, since the righteousness of each is the same—the righteousness of Christ, imputed to the believer. Because grace is unmerited favor, the merits of one man (as man views merit) do not give him any superior standing before God because all of our righteousnesses are as filthy rags (Isa. 64:6).
The same principle applies to the matter of spiritual gifts. In Corinth, as in virtually all churches today, some spiritual gifts were more highly regarded than others. The result was that those who possessed the more desirable gifts were esteemed to be more spiritual than the others. We have already seen that spiritual gifts are literally "graces." God is the sovereign giver of all gifts, every outworking is the result of His power (cf. 1 Cor. 12:4-6). Therefore, there is absolutely no basis for boasting, except in the Lord, who works all in all. Grace removes all ground for superiority and boasting.
It is no wonder that the Judaizers were so opposed to grace. Grace removes the basis for distinctions and thus for a spiritual hierarchy. Since the Judaizers regarded Jewishness (living under the Law) to be superior to Gentileness (not living under the Law), they regarded themselves as superior to the Gentile Christians. Departing from grace, the Galatian Christians were inclined to accept the superiority of those under the Law and put themselves under the same bondage. Wherever there is spiritual pride, there is likely some kind of illegitimate discrimination, and wherever there is such discrimination, grace has been set aside. Grace never produces pride, but grateful humility.
(6) Grace is the key to unlocking the Old Testament Scriptures. Paul was a prisoner of God's grace. Having been saved by grace, Paul was now able to look at the Old Testament Law in an entirely new light. Before his conversion, the Law was Paul's prooftext for torturing and killing Christians. After his conversion, Paul became an ambassador of Christ, now having a graciousness and a compassion which he had never manifested before.
Grace provided Paul with an entirely new perspective for studying the Old Testament Law. Once he focused only upon the Mosaic Covenant, thinking in terms of rules, restrictions, and human effort. After conversion Paul viewed the Mosaic Covenant in terms of the earlier and greater Abrahamic Covenant, which promises blessings instead of the curse of the Law.
It is unfortunately true that one can find texts to justify almost any thesis if one so desires. Once Paul became the prisoner of God's grace, he was able to see grace throughout the Old Testament. For those who have not experienced God's grace, the severity of the Law is their focal point. Grace gives one a new perspective in studying the Bible.
(7) Grace is not just a perspective on the Law, but a perspective on life. Paul's life and ministry was dominated by the grace of God as manifested first and foremost in the gospel. His ministry was marked by grace, not only in his message but in his methods. Is it any wonder that Paul often refused remuneration for preaching the gospel, even though this was his right (cf. 1 Cor. 9)? Grace that is freely received is freely given.
What one is determines what one sees. Grace is an orientation, an outlook on life. Paul was so captivated by the grace of God it was the theme of his life and ministry. That is why Paul could smell a legalist a mile away. That is also why Paul so quickly and decisively responded to a departure from grace.
It is my prayer that you and I will become prisoners of grace, preoccupied by it. Unfortunately, too many preachers have guilt and condemnation as their theme. That was the function of the Law. While a necessary function, it should be overcome and overshadowed by the grace of God. You can only enter into this grace orientation by first receiving the grace of God in Christ Jesus, the grace which led Christ to bear your punishment and to provide you with His righteousness in place of your rags of sin. If you have never experienced the grace of God in the gospel by personal salvation, I pray that you will today, this very hour. If you have experienced this grace, I pray that you will grow in grace and not depart from it by some system of human works, such as that propagated by the Judaizers and a host of their kind today.
Related Topics: Law


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Crystals for Dealing with Overindulgence
Crystals For Dealing with Overindulgence
There is a popular saying that too much of one thing is never good and I would say it still rings true today. Overindulgence in any one item such as alcohol, food, drugs, sex, or even relaxation can be a bad thing. You can find yourself feeling lazy, lacking energy, gaining excess weight, or even find yourself endangering your health with things like drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol. If you are finding that you are suffering from overindulgence, we believe that crystals can help you deal with it, manage it, and find a way to balance the excess.
The vibrant mix of the enlightenment of pure yellow and the joyfulness of orange produces the king of colors: gold. Gold is traditionally the color of kings, riches, and the sun. It is all this and more. It is as close to a magical color as exists. It seems to touch a deep part of our minds, conjuring up images of mystical places, treasure, and adventure. We instinctively seek this color. It makes us feel rich, secure, and successful. It is the color of many symbols of power and wealth. Gold is the color of adventure, success, and power. It is is the color of the earth fully alive in midsummer. It is the ray of rarity, bespeaking richness and natural value. It enriches the spirit, warms us like yellow, and cheers us like orange.
Use Gold Crystals
Golden Crystals Bring You Success, Enthusiasm, Happiness, and Power
Gold is the high color, the crown of life. It is all life, sweet, warm.growing, and reaching its peak. It is brilliant, sometimes blinding, but always tinged with awe and inspiration. Gold is exuberance. Pale gold crystals, like spun flax, offer us the power of toned-down exuberance, they are the crystals of happiness, cheerfulness, and contentment. Crystals that possess the light gold color ray provide us with the pleasure life can offer in simple things. This is essential when deal with overindulgence since it allows you to take pleasure in other simpler things and also feel more satisfied with smaller amounts.
A crystal of golden light, Golden Beryl radiates the warmth and power of sunshine, the illumination of higher thought, and a centered, more vibrant physical well-being. Golden Beryl invokes the celestial Golden Ray of knowledge and learning, to stimulate the higher mind and enable the brain to function more efficiently. It is a stone of true nobility and selfless leadership, and allows one to make decisions based on wisdom instead of emotion or reaction. Since a lot of overindulgence can be based on emotional reactions, this attribute is essential. Golden Beryl encourages a sense of hope, possibility and vitality to the emotional body. It is empowering and optimistic, and assists in learning whatever is necessary to promote change in one's reality, helping to accomplish one's dreams and goals.
Apatite is a stone that helps us seek balance and flexibility. It is a stone often used by crystal healers for issues associated with bone and teeth problems. It is a stone of balance and restoration after emotional trauma. Golden Apatite brings success, enthusiasm, happiness, and power. Golden Apatite brings us the vibration of mental clarity, strength of will, and manifestation. It brings a sunny, spiritual energy to the aura, inspiring hope and passion for life, and instilling a sense of self-worth and self-confidence. Golden Apatite is a positive crystal, instilling hope and optimism. It releases old blockages that may limit one's acceptance of prosperity or abundance and overcomes fear of success.
Golden Beryl
Golden Beryl is a Seeker Energizer Crystal. Seeker Energizers are fantastic energy conduits of the Universal Life Force that help us have the energy and determination to success in seeking new changes in our lives.
Golden Apatite
Golden Apatite is used in healing efforts associated with imbalances in the energy associated with the Throat Chakra. When the throat chakra is in balance we have a easy flow of energy within the body and spirit.
What Authors Say About Crystals
Judy Hall suggests Amethyst which is known as the healer crystal for people and animals.
Amethyst, traditionally worn to prevent drunkeness, has a sobering effect on overindulgence and physical passions.
Moderating things you love or possibly things you are addicted to can be challenging. Often, overindulgence is something we give in to far too often. Temptation, emotional imbalance, and negative energy, among many other things, can affect how much we are able to control ourselves. When needing to deal with overindulgence we suggest trying the happiness, cheerfulness, and contentment found in light gold colored crystals such as Golden Beryl and Golden Apatite. You can also try crystals other authors have recommended such as Amethyst.


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Kurumi's heart was broken by the sudden death of her boyfriend in a tragic airplane accident. Forced to carry on without her beloved Hal, she fell into a reclusive and joyless existence. Kurumi had given up on the world, but a brilliant scientist devised a plan to win her back.
By melding futuristic technology with the binary equivalent of human emotion, they created an ultra-lifelike robotic surrogate to take Hal s place and lure Kurumi from her shroud of solitude. Resistant at first, this shattered beauty slowly yielded to her feelings of longing and took comfort in the company of a robot. Though their unique bond grew stronger with each passing day, Kurumi and Hal would soon discover that nothing about their artificial love story was quite as it seemed.
©Copyright 2024 Anime Bluray


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JUNCACEAE (Rush Family)
Plants mostly perennial, sometimes with rhizomes and/or tubers. Aerial stems branched or unbranched below the inflorescence. Leaves alternate or all basal, grasslike or tubular, expanded at the base into open or closed sheaths around the stems. Inflorescences racemes or panicles of cymes, umbels, or short, headlike spikes. Flowers perfect, rarely unisexual. Sepals 3, green to tan or brown at maturity. Petals 3, similar in size and color to the sepals. Stamens 3 or 6, free. Ovaries 1 per flower, superior, 1- or 3-loculed, of 3 carpels. Style short or highly reduced to absent. Stigmas 3. Fruits capsules, dehiscing longitudinally by 3 valves. Seeds 3 to numerous. Ten genera, 325 species, worldwide.


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PTC stands for "Positive Temperature Coefficient". PTC thermistors are resistors with a positive temperature coefficient, which means that the resistance increases with increasing temperature.
PTC thermistors are divided into two groups based on the materials used, their structure, and the manufacturing process. The first group of PTC thermistors is comprised of silistors, which use silicon as the semiconducting material. They are used as PTC temperature sensors for their linear characteristic.
The second group is the switching type PTC thermistor. The switching type PTC thermistor has a highly nonlinear resistance-temperature curve. When the switching type PTC thermistor is heated, the resistance starts to decrease at first, until a certain critical temperature is reached. As the temperature is further increased above that critical value, the resistance increases dramatically. This type of PTC thermistors is widely used in PTC heaters, sensors etc. Polymer PTC thermistors, made of a special plastic, are part of this second group and are often used as resettable fuses.
A PTC thermistor is a thermally sensitive resistor for which the resistance increases significantly with increasing temperature.
Silistors have a linear resistance-temperature characteristic, with a slope that is relatively small through most of their operational range. They may exhibit a negative temperature coefficient at temperatures above 150 °C. Silistors have temperature coefficients of resistance of about 0.7 to 0.8% / °C.
Switching PTC thermistors are usually made of polycrystalline ceramic materials that are highly resistive in their original state and are made semi-conductive by the addition of dopants. They are mostly used as PTC self-regulating heaters. The transition temperature of most switched PTC thermistors is between 60 and 120 °C. However, there are special application devices manufactured that can switch as low as 0 °C or as high as 200 °C.
As can be seen from the figure, switching PTC thermistors have a slightly negative temperature coefficient up to the point of minimum resistance. Above this point, it experiences a slightly positive coefficient up to the moment it reaches its transition temperature (TC). This temperature is also sometimes referred to as the switch or Curie temperature. The switch temperature is the temperature at which the resistance of switching type PTC thermistors starts to rise rapidly. The Curie temperature is most of the time defined as the temperature at which the resistance is twice the value of the minimum resistance.
The minimum resistance of a PTC thermistor is the lowest resistance that can be measured on a switched type PTC thermistor, as seen on the R-T curve. It is the point on the curve after which the temperature coefficient turns positive.
The rated PTC resistance is normally defined as the resistance at 25 °C. It serves to classify the thermistors according to their resistance value. It is measured with a low current that does not heat the thermistor enough to affect the measurement.
The dissipation constant represents the relationship between the applied power and the resulting body temperature increase due to self-heating. Some of the factors that affect the dissipation constant are: contact wire materials, the way the thermistor is mounted, ambient temperature, conduction or convection paths between the device and its surroundings, the size and even the shape of the device itself. The dissipation constant has a major impact on the self-heating properties of the thermistor.
The rated current represents the maximum current that can constantly flow through a PTC thermistor at specified ambient conditions. Its value depends on the dissipation constant and the R-T curve. If the thermistor is overloaded up to the point that the temperature coefficient starts to decline again, this will result in a runaway power situation and destruction of the thermistor.
Similarly to the maximum rated current, the maximum rated voltage represents the highest voltage that can be continuously applied to the thermistor at specified ambient conditions. Its value, too, depends on the dissipation constant and the R-T curve.
Depending on the application, PTC thermistors can be used in two modes of operation; self-heated and sensing (also called zero-power).
Self-heated applications exploit the fact that when a voltage is applied to a thermistor and sufficient current flows through it, its temperature increases. As the Curie temperature is approached, the resistance increases dramatically, allowing much less current to flow. This behavior can be seen from the figure on the left. The resistance change near the Curie temperature can be several orders of magnitude within a temperature span of only a few degrees. If the voltage remains constant, the current will stabilize at a certain value as the thermistor reaches thermal equilibrium. The equilibrium temperature depends on the voltage applied, as well as the thermal dissipation factor of the thermistor. This mode of operation is often utilized when designing temperature dependent time delay circuits.
In this mode of operation, the power consumption of the thermistor is so small that it has a negligible effect on the thermistor's temperature and therefore resistance, in contrast to the self-heated mode. The sensing mode is usually used when measuring temperature using the R-T curve as a reference.
Silistors rely on the bulk properties of doped silicon and exhibit resistance–temperature characteristics that are close to linear. They are produced from high pure quality silicon wafers, made in different shapes. The temperature-resistance curve depends on the amount of doping used.
Switching type PTC thermistors are made of polycrystalline materials. They are often fabricated using mixtures of barium carbonate, titanium oxide and additives like tantalum, silica and manganese. The materials are ground, mixed, compressed into disks or rectangle shapes and sintered. Afterwards, contacts are added, and they are coated or encased. The manufacturing process requires very careful control of materials and impurities. Contaminations on the order of a few parts per million can cause major changes in the thermal and electrical properties.
Polymer PTCs are made of a slice of plastic with carbon grains embedded in it. When the device is cool, the carbon grains are in close contact with each other, forming a conductive path through the device. As the device heats up, the plastic expands and the grains move further apart, raising the total resistance of the device.
If there is a current running through a switching PTC thermistor, it will auto-stabilize at a certain temperature. It means that if the temperature is decreased, the resistance will decrease as well, allowing more current to flow and thus heating the device. Similarly, if the temperature is increased, the resistance is increased as well, limiting the current passing through the device, thus cooling it down. The PTC thermistor has then reached a point where the power consumed is practically independent of the voltage over a relatively wide voltage range. These PTC thermistors are often made of ceramics in various shapes and sizes and because of their design flexibility, PTC ceramic heaters are a great choice for providing controlled electrical heat. For increased heat transfer, the ceramic heating elements can be mounted on aluminum heat sinks or grids. There are also printed PTC heater inks that can be screen-printed onto polymer substrates to create PTC heaters.
Switched PTC thermistors are used as over-current limiters or resettable fuses in various circuits. In the case of an over-current situation, the thermistor body temperature rises and quickly reaches the transition temperature. This results in the resistance of the PTC thermistor sharply rising, limiting current in the circuit. When the over-current or short-circuit situation is solved and the thermistor is cooled down again, the circuit will function as normal again. In this way it acts as a automatic resettable fuse. Normally polymer PTC thermistors are used for this application. They are known under different trade names such as polyfuse, polyswitch, and multifuse.
A time delay in a circuit can be provided using the time needed for a PTC thermistor to heat up enough to switch from its low resistance state to a high resistance state, and vice versa. The time delay is dependent upon the size, ambient temperature and the voltage it is connected to, as well as the circuit it is utilized in. An example of time delay use for PTC thermistors is their use in fluorescent lamps. When power is first applied, the thermistor is in a cold state (room temperature). The lamp voltage is below the ignition voltage and the current flowing through the circuit heats up the electrodes and the PTC at the same time. When the Curie temperature is reached, the PTC will switch, the voltage across the lamp will exceed the ignition voltage and the lamp will begin normal operation. Preheating of the electrodes extends lamp life significantly, which is why PTC thermistors are used in such circuits.
Some electrical motors have a separate startup winding which needs to be powered only during motor startup. In such cases, the self-heating effect of a PTC thermistor can be used in a series connection with such a winding. When the circuit is turned on, the PTC thermistor has a low resistance, allowing current to pass through the startup winding. As the motor starts, the PTC thermistor heats up and at one point switches to a high resistance state. The time needed for this to occur is calculated based on the required motor startup time. Once heated up, the current through the PTC thermistor becomes negligible, and this shuts off the startup winding current.
These applications rely on the change in the dissipation constant when the conduction and convection heat transfer are increased. An increase in the dissipation constant, resulting from the contact between the device and a liquid or an increased air flow over the device will lower the thermistor's operating temperature and increase the amount of power needed to maintain a given body temperature. The power increase can be measured and indicates to the system that the thermistor is, for example, immersed in a liquid.
The following symbol is used for a positive temperature coefficient thermistor, according to the IEC standard.


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Barbara McClintock
- For the illustrator of the same name, see Barbara McClintock (illustrator).
Barbara McClintock (June 16 1902 – September 2 1992) was an American scientist who pioneered the use of cytogenetics to understand the structure of chromosomes and mechanisms of genetic recombination. Her later work began the science of gene regulation. Her accomplishments are particularly remarkable because she made them at a time when women were formally discriminated against in academic science. McClintock received her PhD in botany from Cornell University in 1927, where she was a leader in the development of maize cytogenetics. That field remained the focus of her research for the rest of her career. From the late 1920s, McClintock studied chromosomes and how they change during reproduction. Her work was groundbreaking: she advanced techniques to visualize chromosomes using light microscopy and used microscopic analysis to demonstrate many fundamental genetic ideas, including genetic recombination by crossing-over during meiosis—a mechanism by which chromosomes exchange information. She produced a genetic map for maize, linking regions of the maize chromosomes with physical traits, and she demonstrated the role of the telomere and centromere, regions of the chromosome that are important in the conservation of genetic information. She was recognized as amongst the best in the field, awarded prestigious fellowships and elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 1944.
During the 1940s and 1950s, McClintock discovered transposition and used it to show how genes are responsible for turning physical characteristics on or off. She developed theories to explain the repression or expression of genetic information from one generation to the next. Encountering skepticism of her research and its implications, she stopped publishing her data in 1953. Nonetheless, she continued in science, and later made an extensive study of the cytogenetics and ethnobotany of maize races from South America. McClintock's research became generally appreciated by the scientific community in the 1970s and 1980s, after other researchers confirmed the mechanisms of genetic change in other model systems. Awards and recognition of her contributions to the field followed, including the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded to her in 1983 for the discovery of genetic transposition; to date, she has been the first and only woman to receive an unshared Nobel Prize in that category.
Early life
Barbara McClintock was born in Hartford, Connecticut, the third of four children of physician Thomas Henry McClintock and Sara Handy McClintock. She was independent from a very young age, a trait McClintock described as her "capacity to be alone." From about the age of three until the time she started school, McClintock lived with an aunt and uncle in Massachusetts in order to reduce the financial burden on her parents while her father established his medical practice. The McClintocks moved to semi-rural Brooklyn, New York in 1908. She was described as a solitary and independent child, and a tomboy. She was close to her father, but had a difficult relationship with her mother.
McClintock completed her secondary education at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn. She discovered science at high school, and wanted to attend Cornell University to continue her studies. Her mother resisted the idea of higher education for her daughters on the theory that it would make them unmarriageable. Family financial problems also worked against her admission, and Barbara was almost prevented from starting college. It was her father's intervention that allowed her to enter Cornell in 1919.
Education and research at Cornell
McClintock began her studies at Cornell's College of Agriculture. She studied botany, receiving a BSc four years later, in 1923. Her interest in genetics had been sparked when she took her first course in that field in 1921. Taught by C. B. Hutchison, a plant breeder and geneticist, this course was the only one of its type offered to undergraduates in the United States at the time . Hutchison was impressed by McClintock's interest, and telephoned to invite her to participate in the graduate genetics course at Cornell in 1922, despite her status as an undergraduate. McClintock pointed to Hutchison's invitation as the reason she continued in genetics: "Obviously, this telephone call cast the die for my future. I remained with genetics thereafter." [1]
Women could not major in genetics at Cornell, and therefore her MA and PhD — earned in 1925 and 1927, respectively — were officially awarded in botany. During her graduate studies and her postgraduate appointment as a botany instructor, McClintock was instrumental in assembling a group that studied the new field of cytogenetics, choosing maize as their species for experimental research. This group brought together plant breeders and cytologists, and included Rollins Emerson, Charles R. Burnham, Marcus Rhoades, and George Beadle (who became a Nobel laureate in 1958 for showing that genes control metabolism). McClintock's cytogenetic research focused on developing ways to characterize the chromosomes in cells. She developed a technique using carmine staining to visualize chromosomes, and showed for the first time that maize had 10 chromosomes. This particular part of her work influenced a generation of students, as it was included in most textbooks. By studying the banding patterns of the chromosomes, McClintock was able to link to a specific chromosome groups of traits that were inherited together. Marcus Rhoades noted that McClintock's 1929 Genetics paper on the characterization of triploid maize chromosomes triggered scientific interest in maize cytogenetics, and attributed to his female colleague 10 of the 17 significant advances in the field that were made by Cornell scientists between 1929 and 1935.[2]
In 1930, McClintock was the first person to describe cross-shaped interaction of homologous chromosomes during meiosis. During 1931, McClintock and a graduate student, Harriet Creighton, proved the link between chromosomal crossover during meiosis and the recombination of genetic traits. They observed by microscopy that the regions of paired chromosomes that are physically crossing-over during meiosis are concurrently involved in exchange of genes. Until this point, it had only been hypothesized that genetic recombination could occur during meiosis. McClintock published the first genetic map for maize in 1931, showing the order of three genes on maize chromosome 9. In 1932, she produced a cytogenetic analysis of the centromere, describing the organization and function of that chromosomal structure.
McClintock's breakthrough publications, and support from her colleagues, led to her being awarded several postdoctoral fellowships from the National Research Council. This funding allowed her to continue to study genetics at Cornell, the University of Missouri - Columbia, and the California Institute of Technology, where she worked with Thomas Hunt Morgan. During the summers of 1931 and 1932, she worked with geneticist Lewis Stadler at Missouri, who introduced her to the use of X-rays as a mutagen. (Exposure to X-rays can increase the rate of mutation above the natural background level, making it a powerful research tool for genetics.) Through her work with X-ray-mutagenized maize, she identified ring chromosomes, which form when the ends of a single chromosome fuse together after radiation damage. From this evidence, McClintock hypothesized that there must be a structure on the chromosome tip that would normally ensure stability, which she called the telomere. She showed that the loss of ring-chromosomes at meiosis caused variegation in maize foliage in generations subsequent to irradiation resulting from chromosomal deletion. During this period, she demonstrated the presence of what she called the nucleolar organizers on a region on maize chromosome 6, which is required for the assembly of the nucleolus during DNA replication.
McClintock received a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation that made possible six months of training in Germany during 1933 and 1934. She had planned to work with Curt Stern, who had demonstrated crossover in Drosophila just weeks after McClintock and Creighton had done so; however, in the meantime, Stern emigrated to the United States. Instead, she worked in Germany with geneticist Richard B. Goldschmidt. She left Germany early, amid mounting political tension in Europe, and returned to Cornell, remaining there until 1936, when she accepted an Assistant Professorship offered to her by Lewis Stadler in the Department of Botany at the University of Missouri - Columbia.
University of Missouri - Columbia
During her time at Missouri, McClintock expanded her research on the effect of X-rays on maize cytogenetics. McClintock reported the breakage and fusion of chromosomes in irradiated cells. She also showed that, in some plants, spontaneous chromosome breakage occurred in the endosperm. Over the course of mitosis, she observed that the ends of broken chromatids were rejoined after the chromosome replication. In the anaphase of mitosis, the broken chromosomes formed a chromatid bridge, which was broken when the chromatids moved towards the cell poles. The broken ends were rejoined in the interphase of the next mitosis, and the cycle was repeated, causing massive mutation, which she could detect as variegation in the endosperm. This cycle of breakage, fusion, and bridge, also described as the breakage–rejoining–bridge cycle, was a key cytogenetic discovery for two reasons. First, it showed that the rejoining of chromosomes was not a random event, and second, it demonstrated a source of large-scale mutation. As a cause of major mutation, it remains an area of interest in cancer research today.
Although her research was progressing well at Missouri, McClintock was not satisfied with her position at the University. She was excluded from faculty meetings, and was not made aware of positions available at other institutions. In 1940 she wrote to Charles Burnham, "I have decided that I must look for another job. As far as I can make out, there is nothing more for me here. I am an assistant professor at $3,000 and I feel sure that is the limit for me." [3] She was also aware that her position had been especially created for her by Stadler and may have depended on his presence. McClintock believed she would not gain tenure at Missouri, although according to some accounts she knew she would be offered a promotion by Missouri in the Spring of 1942.[4] In the summer of 1941 she took a leave of absence from Missouri to visit Columbia University, where her Cornell colleague Marcus Rhoades was a professor. He offered to share his research field at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island. In December 1941 she was offered a research position by Milislav Demerec, and she joined the staff of the Carnegie Institution of Washington's Department of Genetics Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
Cold Spring Harbor
After her year-long appointment, McClintock accepted a full-time research position at Cold Spring Harbor. Here, she was highly productive and continued her work with the breakage-fusion-bridge cycle, using it to substitute for X-rays as a tool for mapping new genes. In 1944, in recognition of her prominence in the field of genetics during this period, McClintock was elected to the National Academy of Sciences — only the third woman to be so elected. In 1945, she became the first woman president of the Genetics Society of America. In 1944 she undertook a cytogenetic analysis of Neurospora crassa at the suggestion of George Beadle, who had used the fungus to demonstrate the one gene–one enzyme relationship. He invited her to Stanford to undertake the study. She successfully described the number of chromosomes, or karyotype, of N. crassa and described the entire life cycle of the species. N. crassa has since become a model species for classical genetic analysis.
Discovery of controlling elements
In the summer of 1944 at Cold Spring Harbor, McClintock began systematic studies on the mechanisms of the mosaic color patterns of maize seed and the unstable inheritance of this mosaicism. She identified two new dominant and interacting genetic loci that she named Dissociator (Ds) and Activator (Ac). She found that the Dissociator did not just dissociate or cause the chromosome to break, it also had other specific effects on neighboring genes - as long as the Activator locus was also present. In early 1948, she made the surprising discovery that the Dissociator and Activator loci could both transpose, or change position, on the chromosome [6].
She observed the effects of the transposition of Ac and Ds by the changing patterns of coloration in maize kernels over generations of controlled crosses, and described the relationship between the two loci through intricate microscopic analysis. She concluded that Ac controls the transposition of the Ds from chromosome 9, and that the movement of Ds is accompanied by the breakage of the chromosome. When Ds moves, the aleurone-color gene is released from the suppressing effect of the Ds and transformed into the active form, which initiates the pigment synthesis in cells. The transposition of Ds in different cells is random, it may move in some but not others, and that random variation causes color mosaicism in kernals (the seeds of maize). The size of the colored spot on the seed is determined by stage of the seed development during dissociation. McClintock also found that the transposition of Ds and the is determined by the number of Ac copies in the cell.
Between 1948 and 1950, she developed a theory by which these mobile elements regulated the genes by inhibiting or modulating their action. She referred to Dissociator and Activator as "controlling units"—later, as "controlling elements"—to distinguish them from genes. She hypothesized that gene regulation could explain how complex multicellular organisms made of cells with identical genomes have cells of different function. McClintock's discovery challenged the concept of the genome as a static set of instructions passed between generations. In 1950, she reported her work on Ac/Ds and her ideas about gene regulation in a paper entitled "The origin and behavior of mutable loci in maize" published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In summer 1951, she reported on her work on gene mutability in maize at the annual symposium at Cold Spring Harbor, the paper she presented was called "Chromosome organization and genic expression".
Her work on controlling elements and gene regulation was conceptually difficult and was not immediately understood or accepted by her contemporaries; she described the reception of her research as "puzzlement, even hostility".[7] Nevertheless, McClintock continued to develop her ideas on controlling elements. She published a paper in Genetics in 1953 where she presented all her statistical data and undertook lecture tours to universities throughout the 1950s to speak about her work. She continued to investigate the problem and identified a new element that she called Suppressor-mutator (Spm), which, although similar to Ac/Ds displays more complex behavior. Based on the reactions of other scientists to her work, McClintock felt she risked alienating the scientific mainstream, and from 1953 stopped publishing accounts of her research on controlling elements.
The origins of maize
In 1957, McClintock received funding from the National Science Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation sponsored her to start research on maize in South America, an area that is rich in varieties of this species. She was interested in studying the evolution of maize, and being in South America, where maize agriculture had originated, would allow her to work on a larger scale. McClintock explored the chromosomal, morphological, and evolutionary characteristics of various races of maize. From 1962, she supervised four scientists working on South American maize at the North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Two of these Rockefeller fellows, Almeiro Blumenschein and T. Angel Kato, continued their research on South American races of maize well into the 1970s. In 1981, Blumenschein, Kato, and McClintock published Chromosome constitution of races of maize, which is considered a landmark study of maize that has contributed significantly to the fields of evolutionary botany, ethnobotany, and paleobotany.
Rediscovery of McClintock's controlling elements
McClintock officially retired from her position at the Carnegie Institution in 1967, and was awarded the Cold Spring Harbor Distinguished Service Award; however, she continued to work with graduate students and colleagues in the Cold Spring Laboratory as scientist emerita. Referring to her decision 20 years earlier no longer to publish detailed accounts of her work on controlling elements, she wrote in 1973:
Over the years I have found that it is difficult if not impossible to bring to consciousness of another person the nature of his tacit assumptions when, by some special experiences, I have been made aware of them. This became painfully evident to me in my attempts during the 1950s to convince geneticists that the action of genes had to be and was controlled. It is now equally painful to recognize the fixity of assumptions that many persons hold on the nature of controlling elements in maize and the manners of their operation. One must await the right time for conceptual change[8]
The importance of McClintock's contributions only came to light in the 1960s, when the work of French geneticists Francois Jacob and Jacques Monod described the genetic regulation of the lac operon, a concept she had demonstrated with Ac/Ds in 1951. Following Jacob and Monod's paper 1961 Nature paper "Genetic regulatory mechanisms in the synthesis of proteins", McClintock wrote an article for American Naturalist comparing the lac operon and her work on controlling elements in maize. McClintock's contribution to biology is still not widely acknowledged as amounting to the discovery of genetic regulation.
McClintock was widely credited for discovering transposition following the discovery of the process in bacteria and yeast in the late 1960s and early 1970s. During this period, molecular biology had developed significant new technology, and scientists were able to show the molecular basis for transposition [9] [10] [11]. In the 1970s, Ac and Ds were cloned and were shown to be Class II transposons. Ac is a complete transposon that can produce a functional transposase, which is required for the element to move within the genome. Ds has a mutation in its transposase gene, which means that it cannot move without another source of transposase. Thus, as McClintock observed, Ds cannot move in the absence of Ac. Spm has also been characterized as a transposon. Subsequent research has shown that transposons typically do not move unless the cell is placed under stress, such as by irradiation or the breakage, fusion, and bridge cycle, and thus their activation during stress can serve as a source of genetic variation for evolution. McClintock understood the role of transposons in evolution and genome change well before other researchers grasped the concept. Nowadays, Ac/Ds is used as a tool in plant biology to generate mutant plants used for the characterization of gene function.
Honors and recognition
McClintock was awarded the National Medal of Science by Richard Nixon in 1971. Cold Spring Harbor named a building in her honor in 1973. In 1981 she became the first recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Grant, and was awarded the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research, the Wolf Prize in Medicine and the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal by the Genetics Society of America. In 1982 she was awarded the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize for her research in the "evolution of genetic information and the control of its expression." Most notably, she received the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1983, credited by the Nobel Foundation for discovering 'mobile genetic elements', over thirty years after she initially described the phenomenon of controlling elements.
She was awarded 14 Honorary Doctor of Science degrees and an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters. In 1986 she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. During her final years, McClintock led a more public life, especially after Evelyn Fox Keller's 1983 book A feeling for the organism brought McClintock's story to the public. She remained a regular presence in the Cold Spring Harbor community, and gave talks on mobile genetic elements and the history of genetics research for the benefit of junior scientists. An anthology of her 43 publications The discovery and characterization of transposable elements: the collected papers of Barbara McClintock was published in 1987. McClintock died near Cold Spring Harbor in Huntington, New York, on September 2, 1992 at the age of 90; she never married or had children.
Since her death, McClintock has been the subject of a biography by science historian Nathaniel C. Comfort, The tangled field : Barbara McClintock's search for the patterns of genetic control. Comfort contests some claims about McClintock, described as the 'McClintock Myth', which he claims was perpetuated by the earlier biography by Keller. Keller's thesis was that McClintock was long ignored because she was a woman working in the sciences, while Comfort notes that McClintock was actually well regarded by her professional peers, even in the early years of her career. The initial lack of interest towards McClintock's discoveries in transposition and her ideas on gene regulation may well have had little or nothing to do with sex discrimination, but instead have been generated by the very forces that she herself had blamed: the inability of the scientific community to accept a revolutionary concept 'before its time'.
She has been widely written about in the context of women's studies, and most recent biographical works on women in science feature accounts of her experience. She is held up as a role model for girls in such works of children's literature as Edith Hope Fine's Barbara McClintock, Nobel Prize geneticist, Deborah Heiligman's Barbara McClintock: alone in her field and Mary Kittredge's Barbara McClintock.
On May 4 2005 the United States Postal Service issued the American Scientists commemorative postage stamp series, a set of four 37-cent self-adhesive stamps in several configurations. The scientists depicted were Barbara McClintock, John von Neumann, Josiah Willard Gibbs, and Richard Feynman. McClintock was also featured in a 1989 four stamp issue from Sweden which illustrated the work of eight Nobel Prize winning geneticists. A small building at Cornell University bears her name to this day.
- ↑ McClintock B A short biographical note: Barbara McClintock (1983) Nobel Foundation .pdf
- ↑ Rhoades, Marcus M The golden age of corn genetics at Cornell as seen though the eyes of MM Rhoades undated pdf
- ↑ McClintock B. Letter from Barbara McClintock to Charles R. Burnham (16 September 1940) .pdf
- ↑ Comfort NC (2002) Barbara McClintock's long postdoc years. Science 295:440
- ↑ Transposon silencing keeps jumping genes in their place Gross L PLoS Biology 4, No. 10, e353 doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0040353
- ↑ Fedoroff N (2004) The discovery of transposition. James and Bartlett Virtual Text, Great Experiments. Last Revised Oct 20 2004
- ↑ McClintock, Barbara. "Introduction" in The discovery and characterization of transposable elements: the collected papers of Barbara McClintock
- ↑ McClintock B. Letter from Barbara McClintock to JRS Fincham (1973) pdf
- ↑ Kleckner NJ, Roth J, Botstein D (1977) Genetic engineering in vivo using translocatable drug-resistance elements. J Mol Biol 116:125-59
- ↑ Berg DE, Howe MM (1989) Mobile DNA, ASM Press, Washington, DC
- ↑ Beckwith J, Silhavy TJ (1992) Session 9. Transposition, pages 555-614 in The Power of Bacterial Genetics: A Literature Based Course Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press NY ISBN 0-87969-379-7


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Pain au Levain with Praline Rose
It all started with this picture when I dropped my son at his mate's house for tennis and saw these colors:
The pink bougainvillea next to their front door against
a flowering jacaranda in the background
A few days later a girl friend invited me to have tea in the park just round the corner from her place, under the flowering jacarandas.
Symphony jacarandas:
First movement
Second movement
Third movement, and
Fourth movement
And this was the bread that I made for our tea:
Pain au Levain with Praline Rose
My Formula
- 350 g starter @ 75% hydration
- 310 g bread flour
- 40 g medium rye flour
- 262 g water * see note below
- 183 g Praline Rose (pink caramelized almonds), 1/3 of the weight of total flours
- 11 g salt
- Extra rice flour and medium rye flour for dusting
Total dough weight 1.15 kg and dough hydration 75% (*Note: I did 75% hydration but in truth the hydration of the final dough felt much higher because of the sugar dissolved from Praline Rose which I over-looked. 70% hydration, or 235 grams of water, would have been plenty. Because of the wet dough, extra stretch of folds became necessary to build up dough strength.)
- In a large bowl mix all ingredients except salt and Praline Rose until just combined
- Autolyse 30 minutes
- Stretch and folds in the bowl 100 times (I tried to build up some dough strength before the nuts go in), then
- Fold in salt and Praline Rose by way of S & F's 100 times again
- Bulk fermentation 2 hours with 2 sets of S & F's of 80 - 100 times each at 45 minutes and 90 minutes (see Note above)
- Divide into two pieces and pre-shape to rounds (or leave as whole), rest for 15 minutes, then shape to boules and place in a flour dusted banneton
- Proof 1/2 hour then into fridge for overnight retarding (I did 18 hours)
- Next morning bake with steam at 240C / 460F for 10 minutes and another 30 minutes at 210C / 410F (It was a mistake to bake at such high heat. I completely over-looked that there was a lot of sugar in Praline Rose. I did see that it browned very quickly in the first 10 minutes of baking and turned down the heat to 210C but had not realized at that point that the dough would burn anyway because of the sugar level. The oven temperature should not have been more than 200 C for the whole duration of baking.)
I truly burned this bread but the crumb was lovely and open.
This was one of the best sourdoughs I have made, despite the charcoaled crust. The crumb is very chewy and mildly sour. I don't taste much sweetness from the sugar, very little in fact. I am very confused as to why this bread does not taste sweet. If my memory serves me right, the pre-crushed Praline Rose I've got has only 20% almonds, which means at 183 g of Praline Rose, there was 146 grams of sugar, about 1/4 of the flour weight!! Then, why doesn't this levain bread taste sweet?! In fact, I don't think I've ever had a sweet sourdough, not even the chocolate sourdough I made. Is that why they say sourdoughs are NOT fattening?! Hog heaven?!


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Welcome to IM Histories, pioneer in the field of innovative interactive mapping.
IM Histories provides communities with a method for recording and displaying their historical information in a rich, versatile format. This technology connects people and their communities through public participation, civic involvement, and its inherent nature of being "place-based." It encourages local pride and perpetuates education and research through open-source GIS technology. Unlike traditional historic preservation projects, IM Histories targets the younger technologically inclined residents, inspiring the next generation of preservationists.
IM Histories utilizes Google Maps API and makes interactive mapping accessible and user-friendly. It is web-based and requires no downloads to develop, manage, or view. It can be accessed from any computer or smart phone, making it a mobile resource and multiplying its utility. This is an exceptionally valuable tool for local, state, and national initiatives in historic preservation and heritage tourism. IM Histories carries your community's history into the future.


text: I have to hand it to the folks at CoBrandit who did a great job of interviewing a bunch of us at the Forrester Consumer Forum a few weeks ago. But when I came across this Widget, it really made an impression on me. In one simple interface, you can view video clips of Charlene Li, Josh Bernoff, ZeFrank, Richard Edelman, Jeremiah Owyang, Misha Cornes and yes--me among others. It's so easy to use and of course optimized for blogs, sites, and social networks like Myspace etc. Really impressive. Here's the long and short of it--if you're going to produce content in any future effort, you MUST have a distribution strategy that factors in a healthy mix of RSS, widgets and support for multiple digital touch points and networks. Well, you don't have to--but more people will probably see your content if you do. And I'm guessing that's a good thing.


text:
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Formerly Carolina Flood Solutions
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Chris Polychron
2015 President - National Association of REALTORS ®
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These openings mainly consist of fixed static air vents with screens that have been used to cover flood openings in foundation walls of residences and commercial buildings located In the floodplain.
These flood openings are required by local ordinances to relieve hydrostatic pressures against foundation walls so they do not collapse during flood conditions. In addition, flood openings help to lessen the impact on the surrounding floodplain and maintain documented Base Flood Elevation by allowing the flood water to flow into the enclosed space utilizing it as flood storage. Please share the release of this information with your colleagues.


text:
Rich contrast of ancient beauty in fossilized Mammoth Ivory Crust set in black resin.
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